D'Alessandro: Terrelle Pryor faces a double standard with NFL

ared Wickerham/Getty ImagesThe NFL postponed the supplemental draft Tuesday, leaving former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor in limbo. One option for Pryor could be the CFL.

Unless the guy running the NFL announces otherwise, the league is going to conduct its supplemental draft someday soon with Terrelle Pryor on the outside looking in, his nose pressed against the candy store window.

You probably don’t consider Pryor a sympathetic figure, and that is understandable. The former Ohio State quarterback wasn’t exactly a scholar, he drove a much nicer car than the one you drive (eight of them in three years, actually), and he exchanged autographed jerseys and other memorabilia for cash and tattoos and all those other life-affirming things that teenagers crave.

But now the kid is trying to enter the work force, having left Columbus, Ohio, in June after a laundry list of violations (his subsequent hiring of an agent made him ineligible anyway). The rules pertaining to supplemental draft eligibility are too convoluted to reiterate here, but Pryor’s problem is that the NFL is wary of his circumstances: His petition is still under consideration because he left school after the regular April draft, technically on his own volition, and wasn’t officially kicked out for some academic issue or misconduct like some of the other guys who are eligible for the supplemental draft.

So as of late today, when the league postponed the draft to consider Pryor’s case, its response to an e-mail inquiry became a more hopeful broken record: “No decision has been made yet on his eligibility,” spokesman Greg Aiello said.

Even if commissioner Roger Goodell changes his stance, we thought you should know that we are revisiting the nexus of college corruption and professional hypocrisy, which is a crossroads you always must approach with a clothespin affixed to your nose.

Usually, the NFL moves heaven and earth to employ the special talents, but Pryor is no better than a fifth-rounder whose future is at wide receiver. That’s the first point that needs to be raised: The NFL had no problem ignoring the overwhelming stench from Cam Newton’s house, and never stood in his way of being the top pick in the regular draft, but now it may conclude that Pryor needs to go away for a year to sanitize himself.

The reason, of course, is that talent trumps everything, and Newton’s sin was instantly cleansed by a Heisman Trophy and a national championship.

It’s easy to tolerate cheating in NCAA athletics — we’ve become very good at it. But if the NFL commissioner becomes the arbiter of what constitutes an NCAA felony, we’re in new and complicated territory, because it’s hard to conceive of Goodell keeping Pryor out by spouting rules. This is, after all, the same commish who was wise enough to change them on helmet hits in midseason.

So we’re interested in seeing how this turns out, especially whether Pryor becomes a pariah because he was part of an obscenely corrupt system in which everyone is allowed to get filthy rich other than the student-athletes who generate the revenue.

As you know, Tressel is no different from most of his peers, but no one seems very willing to do something about it. The only issues the NCAA cares about nowadays is conference alignments and competitive equity, which is all about laying the foundation for a football playoff system, something that will make March Madness look like Saturday night bingo.

There’s a great old quote from Walter Byers, the guy who ruled the NCAA for more than 35 years like a feudal lord: “The coaches own the athletes’ feet, the colleges own the athletes’ bodies, and the supervisors retain the large rewards,” he told Time magazine in 1997. “That reflects a neoplantation mentality on the campuses that is not appropriate at this time of high dollars.”

Byers said this 14 years ago, toward the end of a 37-year career as executive director of the NCAA.

Yet nothing has changed since then, other than some lip service reigning CEO Mark Emmert offered in USA Today last April that salaries for student athletes was a subject he was “willing to explore.”

Speaking of exploration: Tressel, that pillar of probity, was trolling around Browns camp Monday. Just visiting, everyone said; he’s from Barea, even went to college nearby, which was the first step toward becoming the highest-paid public employee ($3.5M) in state history. But if Mike Holmgren and Pat Shurmur decided that Tressel would make a good defensive coordinator or linebacker coach or locker room attendant, the NFL wouldn’t give it another thought.

Pryor? The kid will probably take a shot at the CFL. He’s made his mistakes, and now he could be sentenced to a year in football limbo.

Meanwhile, the red jersey that still bears his name and number (2) was selling for $19.99 at the Buckeye Store inside Schottenstein Center on Tuesday. That is sharply discounted 66 percent from its usual $59 price tag (while supplies last, so get moving), but call it the perfect ending to this parable.

At any price, they still own the only part of him that is currently on the market.